Artificial intelligence (1): our concerns

To wonder

Worried about human intelligence being replaced by the artificial?Let us begin by questioning the reasons for this concern. Is it to imagine a truly equivalent intelligence on a digital rather than organic medium? Will these beings be less human? Is an artificial mind devoid of emotions, lacking the most basic empathy? Is it the spectre of a loss of freedom, of a standardization of thought that would constrain ours? Is it the idea of a disproportionately superior intelligence for which we would have no more importance than ants?

Varied questions and not necessarily connected. They could all be addressed to the human being himself who would decide to evolve quickly. He could transfer himself to a less fragile medium than the organic, take control of his emotions, surround himself with servile assistants, increase his intelligence until he becomes a pseudo-divinity. But then isn’t it ourselves that we are afraid of? What does our imagination hold?

This worrying imagination

Our imagination is offspring of the past, a parent who fades after giving birth to our present, a ghost that merges into another: the future predicts. What separates individuals even more than intelligence is the way in which in them the present condenses between these two ghosts. Major condensation in those who live in the moment, sparks of life tossed in a unfolding of which they seize only a moment. Weak condensation in those who widely extend their temporal identity, keeping the past alive or accentuating the presence of the future to the point of giving it a reality close to the moment, this one becoming a simple ephemeral step towards a more ambitious work. It is in this extension that we become superhuman.

An unprecedented temporal scale

Augmented intelligence, whether human or artificial, has the potential to have an unprecedented temporal magnitude. It contains the means to integrate into it a multitude of problems and answers. Impossible self-blindness. Today, we are flouting the short-term vision of our human decision-makers. That is a game changer.

Our worries, if we look at them closely, are all the more frightening because they also condense into the moment. No prediction. No prospect of them finding a solution. Our imagination stops at the catastrophe, unable to conceive of an afterlife. A worry puts our mind in a loop, shrinks it even more around the present. It is by controlling his fear that the human left the animal, found a temporal magnitude, civilized his world.

Existential fears

Our concerns about artificial intelligence have rational motives. But let us remember that they are above all existential. It is a fear that wants to exist; it refuses to disappear. Reason is only an organization of the drive. The designs are actually drawings on the surface of this pulsating mass.

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Artificial intelligence summary

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